Abstract: Methods and apparatus are described for efficient photodetachment and purification of negative ion beams. A method of purifying an ion beam includes: inputting the ion beam into a gas-filled multipole ion guide, the ion beam including a plurality of ions; increasing a laser-ion interaction time by collisional cooling the plurality of ions using the gas-filled multipole ion guide, the plurality of ions including at least one contaminant; and suppressing the at least one contaminant by selectively removing the at least one contaminant from the ion beam by electron photodetaching at least a portion of the at least one contaminant using a laser beam.

Abstract: A widely used scanner device that rotates a single helically shaped wire probe in and out of a particle beam at different beamline positions to give a pair of mutually perpendicular beam profiles is modified by the addition of a second wire probe. As a result, a pair of mutually perpendicular beam profiles is obtained at a first beamline position, and a second pair of mutually perpendicular beam profiles is obtained at a second beamline position. The simple modification not only provides more accurate beam profiles, but also provides a measurement of the beam divergence and quality in a single compact device.